Depressing Character Login Screeen

LadyLethalla · March 12

I don't like Coldharbour, though to me this login screen reminds me of where we all started 10 years ago.
Call me nostalgic though... if there was a choice I'd probably have the original background that depicted the desert (Alik'r, as a Covenant player - I think the other alliances had a different background?) I do have my login music set to For Blood, For Glory, For Honour.

evymyu233 · March 12

I really like it, the lighting is great, it makes my character look beautiful

karthrag_inak · March 12

Khajiit wishes he could pick loadin background image. Of course khajiit also wishes loadin would display more nicely on his superwide monitor - almost feels like Khajiit is looking under door. Very wide but not high enough to see all pretty details.

Anyway, choice of loadin background would be very nice. Khajiit misses some of the old scenes.

Ooo heres a sleek idea. How about the loadin scene corresponding to wherever a character logs out? Delightful idea, yes?

NoticeMeArkay · March 12

I find the new login screen more pleasant to look at than the previous one.
I don't find it depressing. The visual buildup of the stage invites to take more time to look at everything than the orangy mess we had before. The lighting is more pleasant and the mostly white light with a subtle hint of blue allows for a clearer view on the character than we had before.

There are many things one could complain about in terms of this game. Calling the new login screen depressing seems unreasonable to me. There are better things to focus at than a screen you can skip in 2 seconds. This has nothing to do with accessibility either and I'm honestly growing tired of people misusing the term to have things go their way.

twisttop138 · March 12

Desiato wrote: »

I'm not annoyed by the current character select screen, but it is confusing because it seems more relevant for 2014.

Then in practical terms, I guess ZOS hasn't noticed players taking screenshots of their characters in the character select screen. Though it was also an issue with the previous character select screen, the current color filtering pretty much eliminates this practice.

IMO, the character select screen should have no color filtering and ideally would be themed around recent content.

I believe that the new prologue quest released with this update, as well as news surrounding this years upcoming story involves the worm cult and the return of Manamarco (spelling?) So it would stand to reason Mr. Bal will also be involved. Speculation on my part for sure so grain of salt but it stands to reason.

Edit spelling.

LesserCircle · March 12

I love it and the lighting in it looks awesome, the best character screen we have had, only surpassed by the original alliance backgrounds, I would love those to come back.

Saviin · March 12

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

No way to change it, at this time. In the past we have shared this from players to either change the background or change the music, but there are some tech limitations to make that happen currently. But we will share this with the team again just to make sure they know that there is still interest.

There is still plenty of interest. Might I suggest you take a page from ArenaNet? I believe when Janthir Wilds was released we got the option to choose our character select background, or set it to randomize the background when we log in. If ArenaNet of all people can figure it out, Zenimax / Bethesda devs should be able to as well.

JiubLeRepenti · March 12

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

No way to change it, at this time. In the past we have shared this from players to either change the background or change the music, but there are some tech limitations to make that happen currently. But we will share this with the team again just to make sure they know that there is still interest.

Thanks @ZOS_Kevin for this explanation.

Although, I just feel like the "technical limitations" have been an excuse for so many things... At this point, if ZOS plans to keep updating the game and if it remains cost-effective, is it even being considered to switch to a new engine?

No more items in housing, no cloaks, no flying mounts, no cross-gen... I mean... Will we always be confronted with these "technical limitations" for the rest of the game's lifetime?

Because maybe (and I insist on "maybe") these technical limitations are another reason why so many people have been leaving the game in recent years?

rnklippel · March 12

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

No way to change it, at this time. In the past we have shared this from players to either change the background or change the music, but there are some tech limitations to make that happen currently. But we will share this with the team again just to make sure they know that there is still interest.

I want to echo the voices calling for a background change option. Greymoor remains my absolute favorite.

Ishtarknows · March 12

Looks better than the over saturated orange of the previous one. My characters' outfits will not look like they're a different colour in login now.

CrazyKitty · March 12

The coldharbour log in screen feels like a bad omen given how much I dislike that colorless blue wasteland. Are we logging into a colorless blue wasteland now?

TaSheen · March 12

Ishtarknows wrote: »

Looks better than the over saturated orange of the previous one. My characters' outfits will not look like they're a different colour in login now.

Um. Mine do in this one.... only one looks "normal" (out of gazoolas of characters) - and that's the one bosmer with dro-m''athra cats and one of the khajiit gowns that's quite shiny blue already (can't remember what it's called right now). And my beautiful indriks are all washed out and ugly....

SnakeDodger · March 12

technical limitations for choosing the background is kinda wild ngl

LadyGP · March 12

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

No way to change it, at this time. In the past we have shared this from players to either change the background or change the music, but there are some tech limitations to make that happen currently. But we will share this with the team again just to make sure they know that there is still interest.

Thanks @ZOS_Kevin for this explanation.

Although, I just feel like the "technical limitations" have been an excuse for so many things... At this point, if ZOS plans to keep updating the game and if it remains cost-effective, is it even being considered to switch to a new engine?

No more items in housing, no cloaks, no flying mounts, no cross-gen... I mean... Will we always be confronted with these "technical limitations" for the rest of the game's lifetime?

Because maybe (and I insist on "maybe") these technical limitations are another reason why so many people have been leaving the game in recent years?

A bit of a tangent but just talking from a software development & buisness standpoint... it would be VERY difficult for anyone to convince C Suite to sign off on a full Engine upgrade at this stages in the games life cycle. The only way I would ever see them signing off on it is if there were plans for a "2.0" version of eso. I don't see them doing this for just the usual content drops.

ZOS_Kevin · March 12

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Thanks @ZOS_Kevin for this explanation.
Although, I just feel like the "technical limitations" have been an excuse for so many things... At this point, if ZOS plans to keep updating the game and if it remains cost-effective, is it even being considered to switch to a new engine?

Gonna piggyback off of this because I see suggestions like this from time to time and I do think context and scope are required when talking about a new engine. And please bear with me because this might be a bit long and I am not an engineer. First, I want to acknowledge that it is frustrating to hear that a feature wanted is not available currently because of a technical limitation. It is frustrating for us too. We want to be able to provide as many options as possible to you (without breaking core design philosophy).

To @LadyGP's general point, changing engines is no small feat. It isn't like copying assets and placing them in a new engine and everything will work as is. Totally understand the thought of switching the engine sounds like it will solve problems, but doing that is more or less the equivalent building a whole new game. Even then, there is no miracle engine. All engines come with pros and cons, which the team has to adapt for.

Technical limitations can encompass a lot. Some of it is we would need to build out the tech to make x thing happen. Sometimes it's "we could do x thing, but then it could cause y issue to happen and that could impact performance." So it is working around those problems and hopefully finding a good solution. And those things conflict with the biggest enemy of all, time.

Now that being said, the good news is we are working on things to better adapt to some of the limitations. That is why we asked for that list of top pain points and bugs. And Rich recently followed up to note that we are working on some of those asks right now and have several others on the roadmap internally. We are working to see what can be tackled now and problem solve how to tackle other requests down the line. This is always going back to what Matt said in the end of year letter. This is a year of change and the goal is to better meet the wants and needs of you, the player.

Also want to note that when we note a technical limitation, that doesn't mean we won't do it. It just means we can't right this second. We take this feedback to the team and we continue to evaluate on what is possible and when. The list of pain points and bugs is also helpful to narrow down our focus.

Hopefully, this was helpful to provide context around how we think about limitations and the thought around switching game engines. And these issues are not unique to us, but rather part of game development.

thejadefalcon · March 12

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We want to be able to provide as many options as possible to you (without breaking core design philosophy).

Can the core design philosophy please include "don't change things that aren't broken"? This problem only started because you randomly started changing the background in Greymoor(?). Before that, nobody cared. This frustration over not providing the features we want is an entirely self-inflicted wound.

Lumsdenml · March 12

Bring back faction specific log in screens.

davidtk · March 12

I agree that current screen don't burn my eyes with oversaturated yellow.

Current blue light is little bit annoying but my eyes are not in fire.

Can we get next time some neutral/day light please? And get some adjustment of char-creatiom screen?

AScarlato · March 12

Saviin wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

No way to change it, at this time. In the past we have shared this from players to either change the background or change the music, but there are some tech limitations to make that happen currently. But we will share this with the team again just to make sure they know that there is still interest.

There is still plenty of interest. Might I suggest you take a page from ArenaNet? I believe when Janthir Wilds was released we got the option to choose our character select background, or set it to randomize the background when we log in. If ArenaNet of all people can figure it out, Zenimax / Bethesda devs should be able to as well.

FF14 also finally figured out a way to select our intros from each expansion so we no longer have to default to the current expansion as well. It seems small and maybe even petty, but it's something many players care about.

code65536 · March 12

As someone who uses the Coldharbour house as their primary house, I personally don't mind the new character select, but I can see how it's a turn-off for many people.

I also noticed that the "Default" theme music has also been changed the original base game one, so I guess this is the devs trying to thematically recall the game's roots. If that's the case, then instead of using Coldharbour for character select, why not just revert back to the original alliance-zone character select? Those were pretty nice and probably a better source of nostalgia than Coldharbour. @ZOS_Kevin

Erickson9610 · March 12

As much as I miss the character select screen used during the Greymoor Chapter, I think this system of changing the character select screens to fit the theme of the current story arc is great for promoting the latest content releases. Plus, it gives the impression that things are always changing with this game.

UrQuan · March 12

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

To @LadyGP's general point, changing engines is no small feat. It isn't like copying assets and placing them in a new engine and everything will work as is. Totally understand the thought of switching the engine sounds like it will solve problems, but doing that is more or less the equivalent building a whole new game. Even then, there is no miracle engine. All engines come with pros and cons, which the team has to adapt for.

While I've never worked on video games, I have worked on banking software implementations, which in many ways is similar to replacing a game's engine in that you're replacing a key component from a complex software ecosystem and migrating data (and other assets in the case of games) to the replacement.

Based on that experience, I'll just say that while sometimes it's the best or only solution, it's a huge project that involves a ton of work and a massive cost, and while it should fix a good deal of the pain points with the current system (if not, why are you doing it in the first place?), the migration never goes entirely smoothly and the new system will always introduce new issues that didn't exist in the old system. So I can definitely understand it not being realistic to change to a new engine unless it's clear that either there's no other choice, or that the benefits of the new engine significantly outweigh the cost, effort, and pain of making the switch.

KingArthasMenethil · March 12

Honestly if they could get it working I'd just like to theme character backgrounds with characters.

Say I have an Imperial but with an intact Imperial city in the background, Necromancer with Coldharbour or something Necromantic in the background, A Breton Knight with parts of the Systres in the background and etc.

dragonlord500 · March 12

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Thanks @ZOS_Kevin for this explanation.
Although, I just feel like the "technical limitations" have been an excuse for so many things... At this point, if ZOS plans to keep updating the game and if it remains cost-effective, is it even being considered to switch to a new engine?

Gonna piggyback off of this because I see suggestions like this from time to time and I do think context and scope are required when talking about a new engine. And please bear with me because this might be a bit long and I am not an engineer. First, I want to acknowledge that it is frustrating to hear that a feature wanted is not available currently because of a technical limitation. It is frustrating for us too. We want to be able to provide as many options as possible to you (without breaking core design philosophy).

To @LadyGP's general point, changing engines is no small feat. It isn't like copying assets and placing them in a new engine and everything will work as is. Totally understand the thought of switching the engine sounds like it will solve problems, but doing that is more or less the equivalent building a whole new game. Even then, there is no miracle engine. All engines come with pros and cons, which the team has to adapt for.

Technical limitations can encompass a lot. Some of it is we would need to build out the tech to make x thing happen. Sometimes it's "we could do x thing, but then it could cause y issue to happen and that could impact performance." So it is working around those problems and hopefully finding a good solution. And those things conflict with the biggest enemy of all, time.

Now that being said, the good news is we are working on things to better adapt to some of the limitations. That is why we asked for that list of top pain points and bugs. And Rich recently followed up to note that we are working on some of those asks right now and have several others on the roadmap internally. We are working to see what can be tackled now and problem solve how to tackle other requests down the line. This is always going back to what Matt said in the end of year letter. This is a year of change and the goal is to better meet the wants and needs of you, the player.

Also want to note that when we note a technical limitation, that doesn't mean we won't do it. It just means we can't right this second. We take this feedback to the team and we continue to evaluate on what is possible and when. The list of pain points and bugs is also helpful to narrow down our focus.

Hopefully, this was helpful to provide context around how we think about limitations and the thought around switching game engines. And these issues are not unique to us, but rather part of game development.

I would like to say this.

you could copy the game onto a new engine so the team can get used to it. it would be a special version of the test server but it wont be the same game per-say. that way ESO is on a new engine and after a long time you would be able to easily copy all account data onto the new engine once the devs learn how the new engine works.

ill admit it will take quite a long time and it will likely divide the dev team but this way the game can continue to live out a much longer life span on a new more updated engine.

Credible_Joe · March 12

dragonlord500 wrote: »

I would like to say this.

you could copy the game onto a new engine so the team can get used to it. it would be a special version of the test server but it wont be the same game per-say. that way ESO is on a new engine and after a long time you would be able to easily copy all account data unto the new engine once the devs learn how the new engine works.

There is no copying the game onto a new engine. The engine IS the game. For all practical purposes, there is no separating the game from the engine.

You could do the opposite-- Make a different game with the same engine. But that game would effectively be an ESO reskin with all the flaws and issues currently present.

Over and over again it's explained. Building a new engine, or even just adapting the current game's database to a different engine is the same as asking them to develop an entirely new game from the ground up. And unless you want a moratorium on ESO content for the next 5+ years, that pitch is dead on arrival.

Enodoc · March 12

thejadefalcon wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We want to be able to provide as many options as possible to you (without breaking core design philosophy).

Can the core design philosophy please include "don't change things that aren't broken"? This problem only started because you randomly started changing the background in Greymoor(?). Before that, nobody cared. This frustration over not providing the features we want is an entirely self-inflicted wound.

This would be my preference as well. While we continue waiting for the time when we may be able to select backgrounds on a per-character basis (I'm sure this was a feature announced for last year or before; I'm surprised a technical limitation was discovered after it was announced as an upcoming feature), let's just go back to the vanilla character backgrounds, i.e. the ones that were Alliance-based.

dragonlord500 · March 12

Credible_Joe wrote: »

dragonlord500 wrote: »

I would like to say this.

you could copy the game onto a new engine so the team can get used to it. it would be a special version of the test server but it wont be the same game per-say. that way ESO is on a new engine and after a long time you would be able to easily copy all account data unto the new engine once the devs learn how the new engine works.

There is no copying the game onto a new engine. The engine IS the game. For all practical purposes, there is no separating the game from the engine.

You could do the opposite-- Make a different game with the same engine. But that game would effectively be an ESO reskin with all the flaws and issues currently present.

Over and over again it's explained. Building a new engine, or even just adapting the current game's database to a different engine is the same as asking them to develop an entirely new game from the ground up. And unless you want a moratorium on ESO content for the next 5+ years, that pitch is dead on arrival.

then how and why is the engine they use soo damn limited? I thought anything can be upgraded with new hardware and such. there's no way it can be a programming limit as that can be upgraded endlessly.

you can pretty much copy everything on your old computer over to a new one when you plug in the hard drive to the new one or sign into your microsoft account and a lot of things is copied over to the new computer as well.

I just dont understand how can it ever be like this...

sans-culottes · March 12

dragonlord500 wrote: »

Credible_Joe wrote: »

dragonlord500 wrote: »

I would like to say this.

you could copy the game onto a new engine so the team can get used to it. it would be a special version of the test server but it wont be the same game per-say. that way ESO is on a new engine and after a long time you would be able to easily copy all account data unto the new engine once the devs learn how the new engine works.

There is no copying the game onto a new engine. The engine IS the game. For all practical purposes, there is no separating the game from the engine.

You could do the opposite-- Make a different game with the same engine. But that game would effectively be an ESO reskin with all the flaws and issues currently present.

Over and over again it's explained. Building a new engine, or even just adapting the current game's database to a different engine is the same as asking them to develop an entirely new game from the ground up. And unless you want a moratorium on ESO content for the next 5+ years, that pitch is dead on arrival.

then how and why is the engine they use soo damn limited? I thought anything can be upgraded with new hardware and such. there's no way it can be a programming limit as that can be upgraded endlessly.

you can pretty much copy everything on your old computer over to a new one when you plug in the hard drive to the new one or sign into your microsoft account and a lot of things is copied over to the new computer as well.

I just dont understand how can it ever be like this...

The idea that an engine can be “upgraded endlessly” like hardware is a common misconception, but game engines don’t function the same way as physical components.

A game engine is essentially a massive, interdependent software framework built with a specific set of capabilities and limitations. While some elements can be improved or expanded, the core architecture defines what’s possible.

Think of it like an old house—sure, you can renovate it, upgrade parts of the electrical system, and replace some pipes, but at a certain point, the foundation itself limits what you can do. If you wanted open-concept living but your house was built with essential load-bearing walls, then you’d have to rebuild the house from scratch rather than just “upgrade” the walls away.

ESO’s engine is deeply integrated into every aspect of the game’s systems. Simply “porting it” to a new engine isn’t like swapping a hard drive—it would require reprogramming massive portions of the game from the ground up. That’s why MMOs rarely get full engine replacements; it’s just not feasible without years of redevelopment.

ZOS_Kevin · March 12

sans-culottes wrote: »

The idea that an engine can be “upgraded endlessly” like hardware is a common misconception, but game engines don’t function the same way as physical components.

A game engine is essentially a massive, interdependent software framework built with a specific set of capabilities and limitations. While some elements can be improved or expanded, the core architecture defines what’s possible.

Think of it like an old house—sure, you can renovate it, upgrade parts of the electrical system, and replace some pipes, but at a certain point, the foundation itself limits what you can do. If you wanted open-concept living but your house was built with essential load-bearing walls, then you’d have to rebuild the house from scratch rather than just “upgrade” the walls away.

ESO’s engine is deeply integrated into every aspect of the game’s systems. Simply “porting it” to a new engine isn’t like swapping a hard drive—it would require reprogramming massive portions of the game from the ground up. That’s why MMOs rarely get full engine replacements; it’s just not feasible without years of redevelopment.

The old house example is a really good way to put it.

Peter_emrys · March 12

I feel like people hear "game engine" and think its just a box the game is in and every game's code exists independently of the box and can just be swapped around. The game engine IS the game, there is no "copying over," they'd have to remake practically EVERYTHING just from the raw data and assets.